


Most Steadfast

by Tridraconeus



Series: Most Steadfast [1]
Category: Paladins: Champions Of The Realm (Video Game)
Genre: Cold, M/M, Meditation, Mentions of PTSD, buck/jenos if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 09:07:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14040879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tridraconeus/pseuds/Tridraconeus
Summary: Buck searches for enlightenment. He finds someone else.





	Most Steadfast

**Author's Note:**

> HEYAAAA LORE CINEMATIC WHAT IS UP!!

War never truly ended. Even when the fighting stopped, every soldier carried bits of the war away with them. Every soldier walked through old battlefields no matter how far away they were.

Buck was one of those soldiers.

Like many soldiers, he turned from his old trade and tried to pick up new ones. It was well, and all, but no odd jobs joined him in tamping down memories of blood and dirt. Stories of Ascension Peak reached him through different sources. He spent more time staring up at the expanse of the stars and pale threads of galaxies than actually working. Being lost in the stars was better than being lost in his own head, and so soon enough he set off toward the fabled peak.

It took him longer than he expected. Along the way he met others heading to the same destination. Walking, riding, with carts or with hounds at their calves. They all peeled off in the end, either put off by his gregariousness or unsettled when they recognized the mark on his forehead.

So Buck went alone for the most part and enjoyed the company when it came. When he reached the peak—it took so long to climb! It had looked so small in the distance, so insurmountable from the base, and now the rest of the world looked like a painting set so far below!—he settled into a cross-legged sit near an edge leading down to a steep cliff.

He’d meant to meditate. Once he tried, he came to the realization that he didn’t know how. Had never learned. Didn’t know the rules, or goals, or directives. He tried to clear his mind and all he could find was blood and dirt. He tried to think of his place in the universe and thought only of war, of the small battlefields he carried around inside of him.

He eventually settled for allowing himself to think of the movement around him. Someone set a blanket down and then sat on it. Two lovers chattered, laughed, let a lantern float up into the night sky and shared a kiss before leaving. Someone in mourning. Someone praying for a healthy delivery. A man and his ox.

When he got hungry, he thought of the stars. When he got tired, he thought of the sun.

A cat settled in his lap and purred for a long hour before leaving. The lovers came back, by themselves this time, leaving messages tucked under rocks. Buck didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there. He couldn’t mark time with the coming and goings of two lovers, or of a man and his ox, or a jubilant mother and her squalling child. They stopped coming eventually until it was just him. Even the cat gave up when he didn’t respond, only using him as a cradle on nights that went from balmy to cold. Still, he waited.

The wind picked up. Buck could tell it was about to start raining, even blind, in the way that the electricity prickled on his skin. Still, he waited.

The rain changed to sleet. His fingers numbed. The cat joined him and then fled inside. The monks traveled down the mountain to tough out the winter in the valley.

Buck waited.

The sleet turned to snow. Nobody came up the mountain anymore.

Still.

Buck put just enough stock in fables that he didn’t leave. Numbness crept up his limbs and snow settled on his shoulders. His battlefields covered over with snow. Behind his closed eyes, the blackness spun into sparks of light. Calm joined his stillness and silence.

It could be the grip of frostbite. That was very much possible. It would be a shame for him to have lasted so long only to freeze to death. He took a breath, deep enough that ice clinging to his lips waned at the exhale. He took another breath and thought of the carvings of masks on nearly every stone. Lovers. Holding their lantern, feeling its warmth seeping into his numb fingers.

The cold abated. The sparks behind his eyelids frenzied and twirled, bathed over in pale blue light.

After what seemed like months, Buck opened his eyes.

Well. He’d definitely died. Hanging over the plunge was—well, Buck wasn’t sure who. He had an idea, if it—he wasn’t a frozen fever dream or his mind’s last desperate attempts at rationalizing the cold. The man wore almost entirely blue. Silver. That mask, and from the eyeholes a stream of light. It came from the rest of him, too.

Buck’s breath caught. Knowing that it was likely a terrible, irreverent idea, he met the glowing eyes with his own.

“Jenos?”

The man (god, Buck now knew) hummed in affirmation, pleased at being recognized. As he came closer the strange warmth and ethereal light radiating from him chased more of the cold away from Buck and replaced it with warmth.

“I have watched the skies for centuries. Hundreds have watched for me.” Jenos came to a stop a yard away from Buck. Buck thought, but did not voice, that Jenos was awfully small for a god. He thought of a young monk struggling up the mountain alone; waiting for ages in the screaming sleet, rain, hail, without even the transient company of others or the lights of the monastery. Had he trembled in the cold? Now, he showed no reaction, confident that the elements could not touch him. He took stock of Buck with a glance that was cool and prickling. “None as long as you.”

“My most steadfast disciple.” Jenos kept his voice soft, less because of disuse and more as if he didn’t want to frighten Buck away. Really, Buck wasn’t afraid; he wasn’t going to let himself leave after so long even if he _was_.  Besides, with the proximity it seemed that the snow was reluctant to fall near them. While he wasn't yet warm enough to feel comfortable, he wasn’t freezing either. Buck was grateful for that.

“Allow me to reward your patience.”

Buck’s heart skipped. Not from the cold. He wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly, but Jenos didn’t look the type to repeat himself and the distant, mischievous curve to his lips made Buck think that what he’d heard was exactly what Jenos said. Buck opened his mouth to ask exactly what reward meant. Jenos cut him off, piercing eyes still boring into him and replacing the frigid cold with a humming warmth.

“A request. A question.”

Buck nodded. Swallowed. He didn’t expect this. “When you were here. Alone.” How to phrase it? Not like he was begging for enlightenment, because he wasn’t, and knew that by now he was far too grounded to ascend in the same manner; his lot was blood and dirt. He’d be satisfied with it, but he was not fool enough to turn down an offer from a god. Jenos let him pause and think, all the time in the world. “What did you learn? Why did you come back?”

Jenos’ eyes flared brighter through the mask. He smiled, as if he’d known exactly what Buck would ask for. Maybe he did. Buck didn’t know much about gods or what they knew. He straightened up and lofted himself the slightest bit higher in the air, repositioning. Coming closer. Buck felt the ozone crackle of power on his skin instead of simply near it. “Come closer. I’ll show you.”


End file.
